Friday, March 10, 2017

5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started Chemo

When
facing a diagnosis of lymphoma, it can be difficult to know what to expect. I
didn’t know how chemo would impact my life, and there was no way for me to know
how chemo would affect me first-hand. Although there is lots of information
available about chemo, and how to prepare for it, going through it is
completely different.

Following
are five things I wish someone had told me before I started chemo. I hope these
five things I learned (plus one bonus!) will be insightful to anyone starting
chemo.

1.
Set reasonable expectations for yourself

It’s
probably best that you only plan to do one or two things a day. If you exert
yourself too much and do not feel well or energetic enough to fulfill other
plans, don’t be hard on yourself. Your body is going through so much and the
last thing you should stress about are the plans you are not able to fulfill.
Take it slow. Your friends will understand completely if you would rather veg
out and watch Netflix.

2.
Listen to your body/report to your doctor

This
a big one for me. I say this to my friends who don’t even have cancer. You
should always be listening to your body. Our bodies are designed to fight for
us, and they will always speak up when something isn’t right. We just have to
listen close enough.

Listening
to your body becomes very important because the chemo will affect our bodies in
ways that we’ve never experienced. For me, most chemo weeks came with their own
set of side effects.

Chest
pain was the big one for me, which eventually led to being diagnosed with a
pulmonary embolism (the scariest part of my treatment.)
But because I listened to my body (and reported to my doctor), I was able to
catch the embolism in time.

*I
found it helpful to keep a journal or note of each chemo week’s side effects
and then send them to my doctor, or sharing the list with him at my next
appointment.

3.
Playing the cancer card is OK

I
always thought it was super awkward to play the card, and wasn’t sure how to
even introduce the topic. Eventually, I figured it out, as I think you will,
too. Sometimes you really have no other choice but to play the cancer card. And
that’s okay. I believe we got dealt this card, and it’s only fair if we get to
use it every now and then!

4.
Give your body a fighting chance

Cravings
aside, make sure that what you are putting in your body benefits you in some
way. The stuff you are being injected with, although fighting the cancer cells,
is not strengthening your body’s natural resources. Do what you can to consume
the things your body loves and will benefit from. In contrast, I also say that
by listening to your body’s cravings (my craving was Sour Patch Kids!) you are
giving your body what it needs in that moment. We can talk about cravings more
later.

5.
Temper your expectations of your friends (and even your family)

I
cover this briefly in a video on my youtube channel. I’m not sure what you can
make of my tears in the video, and it’s been a while since I re-watched it, but
friends are going to let you down. Family is going to let you down. Going into
treatment and your cancer diagnosis, I recommend tempering your expectations of
who you think will pull through and be there for you. In most cases, the people
you expect to be there for you are the ones who can’t, and the people that you
don’t expect at all come out of the woodwork and bring their “A game.”

I
find that this filtering of the friends who didn’t stick around is a blessing
in disguise, and I’m actually pretty happy about learning these things sooner
rather than later.

One
part I really have trouble with when it comes to the friends department
post-chemo, is remembering that it’s OK for friendships to fall through with
friends who were there for you during treatment.

**BONUS**

Plan
for life after cancer!

Once
treatment ends, you are entering a totally “new normal.”
Life as you knew it will be very much different. You probably will have
different outlooks, you may be dealing with PTSD, and you will not feel like
yourself. No one mentioned this to me when I was diagnosed, or started
treatment.

Prepare
for this. Set goals for some things you want to accomplish post-cancer.
Changing your career path? That’s okay. I did, too!

Preparing for chemo
won’t make it go away, but you’ll be ready for it. And that’s half the battle!